Front oil cooler possibility, for my GT style oil system Options

[michel richard]

So, in the process of building my GT style 914/6 I'm working on the oil system. I'm not too fussy and if a part is not apparent, event with the hoods open, I don't care too much if it looks original or not.

The original 914/6 GT cars used a front oil cooler that was a very close relative to the 906 oil cooler. If a 906 cooler is rare and expensive, an actual 914/6 GT cooler must be in the "mortgage your house and promise your next born" category. And I don't mind saving a fe bucks if I can.

So I've come across this idea for the front cooler. I bought a 928 automatic transmission oil cooler. The cooling portion (between the end tanks) is 23 inches wide, by 2.75 inches high. The cooler is 1.25 inches thick.

Here are a few pictures.

[michel richard]

Here's a bunch of pictures of the real part. I don't know how Armando finds all of these

http://www.pbase.com/9146gt/9146gt_front_m..._oil_cooler_no1

Dimensions of the original appear to be something like 23.5 X 4 X 4.

So I'm thinking that I may buy another one of the 928 oil coolers (they're cheap, I paid $40 for the one I have, used) and organize it in series with the first. They would sit one behind the other in the car, oil would come in at the end of the rear cooler, flow across, through a new fitting to the front cooler and then back through the front cooler.

It would mean substantially modifying the coolers, to change the fittings, which should normally be 30 mm thread, and making a connection between the two coolers at the other end.

The advantages are: Behr parts, kinda funky, dimension close enough that it would fit; cheap in parts, probably semi-cheap in aluminum welding time at the machinist's shop, (I'm not equiped to weld aluminum).
Disadvantages: uses old coolers of unknown origin, requires a lot of fiddling.

Does anybody know how to estimate the cooling capacity of an oil cooler ? How do I estimate the cooling capacity of my possible solution to the cooling capacity of the original ?

Thank you all for your input.

Michel Richard